Category Archives: Writing

“Answers in the Tea-leaves”

Answers in the tea-leaves, sheaves appear before the harvest Is gathered; there within the dross, a silence brewed to solution. Questions, masked, bitters in the waters provide ablutions To the tongue; dissolved, a saviour moot with which to invest In what must come when coincidence and will are spent. And what of proceeds, pensions, dubious transactions Boxed and packaged in the cards, admiring factions That succumb to givens in the numbers of the deck? The rent Is paid, the covenants lapsed, and here again, The possibilities drown within themselves! When Vonnegut died There came a deadly pause and then applause (denied Of course, but heard!) from every semi-colon on the plains of every page. “Just so,” the concourse wails, “What will you write?” “With what ink,”‘s the reply, “and with which nib, … and who’s the audience tonight?”

“These Sonnets”

These sonnets do seem at times
Something like aspirins or vitamin C;
You know the old stock remedy
From doctors that used to say,
“Take two of these tonight
And call me in the morning.”
For me, at least, the effects of writing
And even reading some of them
Are much more potent than their actual content
Since life, itself seems to demand from me
In the ordre of any given day
Oof effects than the actual content of any twenty-four hour period.
It’s not so much what I did today, but rather that I was alive to do it.

“By Day, the Toil!”

By day, the toil. Just so. At times the ache Returns, but somehow, nightfall must come. Perhaps It is the hour, or something in the newly evening breeze, but laps Throughout the day are then for someone’s sake Forgotten, and he simply sits before the fire, Or there, outside beneath the bluer, richer hues Of cares and harsher edges of desire To carve, to whittle, to embrace a life at once recused In poetry, metre askew with so little harmony, alone Not so much in sparks, but in the riot of results. He waves his hand and even owls listen; bolts Of lightning in his voice again do not groan But gently call to sit beside him in the light Of distant days remembered in the call to rest with him through the vanity of his night.

“Two of Them”

Two of them apprised will rise while only one survives; The first, a germ like any other, in the second, Excellence as loving makes it so. She reckons Life in paragraphs and chapters, derives Pleasure in the phrase, itself–in leisure lies The notion of posterity, the fecund Last and lonely station of a book—the legend More important than the fact, the spies Than what is spied upon. Where there are three The Chinese say, some one of them must be a teacher. Let both in compromise find refuge in the third That one may truly love, the other form the words Recording signs and sighs of mystery And ritual and yet another sermon for the preacher.

—Once

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

Gabriel José de la Concordia Garcia Márquez [1927 — 2014 ]Love in the Time of Cholera

“Questions Mount”

Questions mount by ranks in compliments, the odd, the even third’s irrelevant— To be or not to be, to seek what’s seen or unseen or better not to see at all—so what’s a circus in a world without eternity?Though you’re never here; the monitor’s are and adamant, Unequivocal, belligerents beyond the why and wherefore, or what’s the point? And were you here beside me, would I then need sleep? Awake, of course, but to open my mouth and sing? Which? Would I seek another ocean’s steel, another steep Abyss within, impose a living curfew on the thing or casually anoint The advent’s risk with just a simple kiss? There’s a Judas in this Somewhere and while his days are numbered with the dusts, a wrinkled Inevitability seals an excess housed in caskets filled with gold. When the last least crop Of shibboleths is coined and counted, there he’ll be atop the list Some two branches lower on the tree, twin broken tokens found, and not other sound. And when I go,

I’ll nowhere to be found and who is’t takes time to lay me in the ground?

…Concessions, yes, of course, in hirsute clouds and rust stains from the last and latest deluge drained that dusty rains can well afford; their comfort, hearts within the sheltered warmth and nightly wells of welcome find everyone in time refined in my own bed…

…I imagine angels on the pillow where I lay my head, And when I write I am at Temple as I pray in nightly sanctuary of the arts Within my head; I read or hear within the marble tabernacle some tale, a fable Running rampant through that vapid place where syllables and sounds abound But are not voiced and never heard as choirs of laughter round The workman’s bench, no clock is wound, as guests have long since left the table. Yes! One day’s maintains bear no obvious hint of perseverance, No consolation in arrears for years, no respite from the constant consequence Of experience formed in beads of real fears. Vision simply comes to me, enabled, Ready made. Who I am to speak? With whom am I that am alone? I ignore The luminosities of mirage as I lay here but for a superficial middling time, And here with me is what almost never is and almost nothing more.

“She Wants To Write”

She wants to write; she struggles With an angel, images are parboiled, ideas do not flow At once and where she wants them. She demands to know Just how it is that others write so freely, snuggle, Fondle, knead words and sounds together, Capture arias on napkins and motifs on the page; Emanations of kinetic life on balconies of rage And righteous indignation flaunts the comic flight of feathers In outrageous colours never landing on igneous peaks But forming xenoliths of grammar from the crystals of an age. Fear, Perhaps. The answer for the muted mind lies somewhere near A comic line of serendipity, anomalies of life: some there are who speak In tragic eulogies, they place the goddess upright on the half shell; her beauty swells― The curse of fishermen and saints― and some are simple poems in themselves.

“You Say You Want to Make a Little Something”

You say you want to make a little something on the tide, Secure some Appalachian dinghy on the sly For days when you and she or he or they are all so tired Of cut-and-run through the mire and desire

For all you say you don’t believe in. The moon’ll dim, the stars’ll manifest their spell While Johnny learns to read and write For number one or possibly or a nice crisp “two”;

A grocery list, a delivery note that says:“Tonight you’re mine; back in five
To take it all,. . . .or whatever you’re delivering…” While yet another apple falls on Humpty Dumpty or slips on down the drain,

But nothing puts you back again, And by the time Ol’ Humpty figures out the route, It’s time to lick the thumb and turn the page and scout The TV Guide for better pastures, “fresher deals” They say; we’ll steel what’s left of your last breath. You’ll see; you’ll feel Nothing on this prescription, no regrets and if the casual fool inquires, or cares to ask the price, you tell’em, “first one’s free but not the last!“

“I Turned Around”

I turned around and found that they were gone, Swarms, the chorus of bovine hacks and seekers, friends, And, yes, of course, the teachers with certificates in the trend– I, but one of many minions–a catalogue, a myriad of martial songs In sync, a jihad of rhythm and cadence in specific cacophony, As comes the nightly roaring of the lions in the thickets of what Is neither fact nor fiction; wickets for just another cue, a cut Above, or so it’s thought, but addressed in distraction and destiny Of dispensations’ delivered duties bound to mortal schools and rules That pass so aimlessly through the ancient sieve of marble verse Garnished with proviso and caveat , the business of a thousand terse And cryptic observations so confidently voiced by just as many fools. And I woke up one spring day with leaving on my mind, And more than reason to believe that someone must be lying. Answers in the tealeaves, sheaves appear before the harvest Is gathered; there within the dross, a saline silence in solution. Questions, masked, bitters in the waters provide ablutions To the touch; dissolved, a saviour to the rites of moot investment In what must come when will is spent. And what of proceeds, pensions, dubious transactions Boxed and packaged in the cards, admiring factions That succumb to givens in the deck? The rent Is paid, the covenants are honoured, and here again, The possibilities drown within themselves. When Vonnegut died There came a deadly pause and then applause (denied Of course, but heard) from every semi-colon on the plains “Just so,” the concourse wails, “What now will you write?” “What the ink,”‘s reply, “and which the nib, … and who’s the audience tonight?”

“Where there is an audience…”

Where there is an audience, the verses do not fail; Where there is goodwill, each least syllable ascends The heavens to return a wondrous tale… And so the cycles of the writers’ pens are worlds that never end.

“The Well Is Dry”

The well is dry, the residue of ink explores The walls of silence, crystalline in isolation from the roaring pen. Surfaces have all been cleaned; shelves are empty now, and when The hour dies, the index finger traces symbols, beads of inspiration born Of ingots grown from sediment as saline prints–fingers Soil the complaisant innocence of a parchment that never rests; Rich papyrus–stretch marks in the margin–attests That I am ever drowned in possibilities where wonder always lingers. Surely, then, there is no pause to speak of in the daily common look Through possibilities, the slumbering leaves of future chapters, What exists and for the moment merely cages what’s been captured Reveals nothing to or from me, yes! but for another time, another book. My pen stands ready to offend not so much as to enrage Itself. Not all that is and every crimson serif finds the page.

Bahá’í Scriptures and Readnings

Bahá’í Writings for Morning and Evening
Readings of Scriptures and Writings from the Centres of the Bahá’í Faith to be read in fulfillment of the requirement incumbent upon all Bahá’ís that they read from the Creative Word every morning and ever evening…

Everybody Means Something
Articles, thoughts, observations and/or poetry about the same from a Bahá’í perspective regarding life and psychology; a most worthwhile read no matter what the topic or posting…

Myriad Lives
A site devoted to postings and discussion of Bahá’í Sriptures…

Bahá’í Thoughts and Ideass

Everybody Means Something
Articles, thoughts, observations and/or poetry about the same from a Bahá’í perspective regarding life and psychology; a most worthwhile read no matter what the topic or posting…

Myriad Lives
A site devoted to postings and discussion of Bahá’í Sriptures…

Louvain95
An intelligent site I have discovered that features the visual arts with taste and care for beauty and couched in a love of humanity…

Notes from an Alien
Notes from an Alien is an especially informative and interactive site dedicated to the subject of writers, writing, publishing, and encouragement to publish creative material. If one is interested in self-publishing as opposed to the traditional route of

Visual Arts Sites

Louvain95
An intelligent site I have discovered that features the visual arts with taste and care for beauty and couched in a love of humanity…

Writers of Poetry

Wrting and Writers

Notes from an Alien
Notes from an Alien is an especially informative and interactive site dedicated to the subject of writers, writing, publishing, and encouragement to publish creative material. If one is interested in self-publishing as opposed to the traditional route of